Estate agents - help with negotiating needed!

[LittlePickleHead]

So we are in the position that we want to get our flat on the market asap. We've had a couple of valuations (of similar value) but I didn't really touch on fees etc as it was more academic at that stage.

We have a new agent coming round tomorrow, and another on Saturday who has already valued us, so that we can properly discuss everything.

Can anyone help me with what I should be asking/what fees and other charges are to be expected? One has said they charge for photos, is that normal (their photos do look good to be fair)? Should we just be trying to go for a 1% fee at the moment? What particular qualities make one agent better than another?

Any advice would be really appreciated as this is my first buying/selling experience and I want to make sure that we get it right

Do you have any neighbours who used the Agents you're thinking of, to ask what their experiences were? We had a shocking time with ours, they had the most boards up in our area, but when we spoke to the neighbours about them they all recommended another one in the area who we'd discounted due to a seeming lack of boards up (apparently they didn't need boards as they had waiting lists and often sold houses within hours of them being on the market).

Good luck!

Well one of them was recommended to us by a friend (for renting not selling but still, they are a small local agent which appeals). However they do not have loads on their books similar to our property so I'm not sure of the success.

Another is a large London chain, who seems to have lots of properties sold like ours and like we want to buy. However I haven't had the best feeling about them and have heard a few negatives.

The neighbour I spoke to did tell me some horror stories about another agent who I will not touch with a barge pole. I must admit I haven't really looked at the boards up around the area, I'm more going by what's on rightmove etc

How can you decide who will actually be the most effective at selling though? I mean, will it make much difference, or will the house sell for a similar price no matter who you use?

Have never heard of anyone charging for photos - fees too - that's pretty cheeky !
Have a look on the big property websites - findaproperty/rightmove etc and see who in your area is selling similar properties (price and style). How are the sales presented - some of the small agencies are as professional as the major players.
IMO most of the selling is done via website these days, I wouldn't bother to view anything that doesn't have lots of photos, a floorplan and a half decent description. If there are very limited photos, I either assume that the other rooms are barely habitable or the agency is trying to cut costs with their website provider by only putting a couple of photos on.
1-1.5% is fairly normal these days. It's still a fair bit of cash for a selling process which has become a lot easier these days

I went on my experiences as a buyer. In other words which agent was most proactive calling me up and getting appointments booked in at properties. Because that's what I want as a seller - someone who makes an effort. Also someone selling similar properties and ones I would like to buy suggests they will have people on their books with the right budget etc.

Don't think we have ever got as low as 1% but a friend struck a deal once that she would pay 1.5% for asking price and 1% below. Funny enough the agents were well motivated to get asking price and later when there were minor bubbles, they smoothed things over and avoided any late reductions. It seemed to be a good way of getting them to work quite hard to justify their fee!

Quibbles not bubbles!

The small local agent wanted .5% more than the big London agent when I was selling. I chose the bigger agent not only because I didn't have to negotiate but also because my neighbour had sold through them and my flat is on the edge of a desirable area which I know a lot of people wouldn't look at necessarily so I wanted an agent which would sell it hard despite it not being in the local agent's sweet spot. I sold in 3 weeks for 5% less than asking price (which was was the local agent valued it at) so was very pleased.

You have to be careful with those who offer you the cheapest deal as they could just be playing the game of getting as many properties on their books as possible.

I can think of 2 estate agents in Swansea who offer very cheap deals but, boy, I have personally found them amongst the laziest s*ds going - one EA once let out a loud moan when I asked her for the property details of a house I was interested in.

Poor girl, she had to reach all off TWO FEET to open the filing cabinet and hand me the A4 details. So I held little hope for her wanting to energetically market my house to people.

Soooo having seen all of agents how do we decide? Gut feeling? They have all given us exactly the same valuation (independently of each other) and they have all matched the lowest fee of 1.2% (one is lower than this but at a flat fee, so if we sell at our ideal price it's around 1%, but I guess if we sell for lower it's a worse deal). I've had recommendations as also heard a few negatives about all of them.

Do I just go with the most positive agent? I warmed to her (she would be doing viewings) she called me back soon after she has left to offer me a lower rate (they offered the flat rate), and seemed to think we would sell easily.

The other give the same valuation but didn't seem all that positive and was basically 'give it a go and see of it sells, but it might not'. Perhaps they are just being realistic, but it worries me that opinion may affect their positivity in viewings? However they do focus more specifically on our area that the other.

There is a third that I want to discount purely because the agent seems so cagey and I don't feel at ease around him. They are also the largest agent so potentially have more reach and also sell more of the properties we would like to move into.

So.... Is it wise to go with the first agent based purely on the fact I warmed to them the most?

We are planning to put our house on the market soon so I have been doing some research. I found an interesting thread in the moneysavingexpert house selling/buying forum written by an ex-EA.

There were two main points:

Firstly, don't agree to a long lock-in period. EAs often try to lock you in to up to 8 week contracts. Ask for one week after notice in writing. That way if you're not happy with their performance you can move to another without the first one suing you for their fee. And if they know you can move on they'll work hard for you and give you a realistic valuation from the start.

Secondly, you can negotiate on dual- or multi-agency fees, some agencies want to charge up to 2.5% if you go with more than one. This can be negotiated.

Disclaimer: this was from the first post of a long-running sticky that was started in 2004 so I don't know if it's out of date now. There are plenty of MNers with experience in property who will hopefully put me right if it's no longer the case.

I read on here once about someone emailing all local agents and saying 'don't phone me', automatically ruling out any that did!

We have tried to sell two times previously, first with big local agent (came off the market when I got to 32 weeks preg), second with national chain (Haart- avoid like the plague, came off because they were crap and by the time we'd given notice it was winter and the market was basically dead). Would agree with avoiding lock in period.

We are just going on again with a smaller, but very experienced, local agent. Good gut feeling this time too, like the guy and LyftiDog is besotted with him (good sign surely!). We're confident he will market the area as well as the house, something our previous agents failed to do (desirable village). He also does floor plans which some EAs locally don't do, and the photos/details on rightmove tend to be pretty good.

All our local agents had similar valuations and the same fees, so we went for the one that felt 'right' this time.

Hoping we get moving quickly so we can TTC#2! Good luck whatever you decide Pickle

A warm feeling will not get you too far. Who is going to do the best job?
When you are selling the agents are charming until you sign up and then they don't care about anything but a quick sale at a price that suits them. They need to churn to make a living. They have to be nice to buyers to get them to buy hence why lots of first time sellers are a bit surprised when the charm dries up!
Which agent has more buyers on their books looking in your bracket/area property size? That's a better thing to look for.

I got a couple of agents in and I was shocked at the difference between the 2.

The first one spent more time talking about her cats, wouldn't go in the garden because she had heels on and overvalued our house by tens of thousands.

The second guy came armed with facts and figures about what had sold and after how many viewings on similar properties in the area, and pointed out the differences between ours and theirs and how that would affect the price. He gave me a top price and a bottom price that we could achieve.

We went with the second agent, who was twice as expensive but I managed to get his fee down slightly if it sold before Christmas which was 3 months away. Anyway, it sold in the first week after 4 viewings.

Go with your gut and the one who fills you with the most confidence.

Well we surprised ourself and went with the most expensive agent with the longest tie in period, who is also market leader and gave us all the facts we needed (along with selling similar properties to ours). Still not sure we are doing the right thing but hey ho...

we went with a local independant in the end and paid a fixed fee (which worked out at 2.5% in the end) which seems like loads BUT they worked really hard on my sale and when it looked like it was going to fall through they pulled out all the stops to rescue the deal.

Our next door neighbour who was on with another agent (a national chain) went on the market 6 months before us and is still on now and we moved in january!